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Kafuuka
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Posts posted by Kafuuka
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Originally there wasn't going to be a currency and even now most people trade without using the coins. They aren't exactly a practical currency anyway, since it takes a lot of effort to trade them in large quantities and it is impossible to trade half a coin. Right now their value is subjective and unstable... Some people might treat it as just an item.
On the other hand, some people are already planning to become a bank or a loan shark. Which is far from the primitive economy.
What exactly are the coins then? I look at them as the early stages of currency. Some people believe in them, but others will refuse to trade for them. They are supposed to be made of precious ores, not flimsy paper, making them more tangible. It would actually be fun if you could melt a stack of coins into a bar of silver. (without spending a WP) -
Whatever is a good reward for a 90 day old player will still be one for the 91s, so there is no perfect solution, but how about this:
On average the winners should be 52,5 days old and at that stage an aged elemental seems nice to me, while not worth the trouble for old players. -
Do we really care that much about the alts? This is a contest of creativity and you only get to enter a character into it once. If it were to be a periodic thing (imo 75 days would make sense then since it is 15 to 90 days old characters), you could enter with alts multiple times, but every entrance would be a new story and character, ie a new creation. Also, being a veteran player does not offer much benefit to character creation, unless you want to make it obvious that you played the game for a long time by incorporating a huge amount of lore. In HC I can see the clear advantages of using alts, but in this contest?
Can we do something against alts? Every counter measure will lead to people being even more sneaky and clever. IP's can be concealed, styles can be changed or hidden. It does make things harder. I'd love to enter the competition and see how far I get, but I wouldn't do it for the reward, considering the amount of effort it would take me and the amount of contestants if older players were allowed too. If we must take actions against alts, it will be by threatening with penalties. The chances of discovery might not be that high, but they are larger than zero and if there is a lot of entrants, the chances of winning aren't that high to justify the risk.
The public profile would help a lot for the timezone thing, but it would not for 'participation in the game'. That criterium would be very important, if it were something easily measured. It would also increase the amount of effort a player would have to put into a character, which does counteract alt use. It seems however rather impractical.
Chewett: you might be able to fool me and have the time and intent to win the contest, but for every person that meets those conditions, there will be a lot of people that don't. And even if there were, they'd have to compete with each other. imo The sad part would be that the alts' stories are wasted if those characters are abandoned after the contest. However, if they are maintained and cared for, although not furthering the goal of this contest, it will still benefit MD. -
Quality of English: everybody is allowed to have someone help them if they think their English isn't good enough. Besides, the game is in English and it never hurt anyone to learn a second language (or their first one...).
Alts: it takes a lot of work to make an original character and write a background story. This is true even more if you are an adept writer because you will never be satisfied with your work. "For every sentence I kept, I have thrown away at least one page of writing." (don't remember which writer said that)
No matter how good you think you are, there are no guarantees to win and there aren't any retries either. And there is a chance people will notice your style. The only reason people will try it against all odds, would be that they have too many active days to participate and too much time. I'd propose a side contest with a smaller reward, for older players/alts... but it'd be silly to have good character designs go to waste after the contest is over.
Criteria:
the story/writing - this one is obvious.
the layout - this would favor html knowing people, but once again, asking assistance is allowed. and there are a lot of things one could do wrong even without accessing the html, eg. all CAPS would give you minus infinity points.
character design - how balanced are powers and flaws, how in tune is it with MD?
I also suggest having the candidates sign up for this and have them idle in a designated place, especially if you use a small amount of judges. Timezones make it hard to read everybody's papers. -
If DNA consists of principles, then so could enzymes/hormones.
In biology cells with the same DNA specialize into different functions: muscles, braincells, skin cells etc. If I remember correctly, cells acquire their specialization because certain parts of the DNA can be activated or inhibited by the presence of certain enzymes. Once activated, a cell normally starts producing the enzyme responsible for the activation until a certain threshold is met, thus preserving the specialization without wasting energy on limitless production of a single enzyme. This preservation is part of the balance inside a cell.
Hormones are also produced by cells and then travel through the blood and enter other cells, affecting what those cells produce. A large concentration of one hormone usually inhibits further production of that hormone, thus balancing the concentration.
Unlike biology, in MD a player's principle knowledge and stats do change over time. Their 'principle DNA' is not fixed. How would I incorporate 'principle hormones'? Based on the 'principle DNA' every player would produce an amount of hormones, which they transmit to other players and then change their 'principle DNA' and thus which 'principle hormones' they produce. Instead of a bloodstream, the medium would be speech, in essence a memetic infection. This also allows for places associated with a certain principle (or combination thereof) to 'infect' players. -
This reminds me a lot of the diagrams I made when I was a little kid. Sloppy handwriting, symbols and acronyms that i invented and have since forgotten. If I'd look at those now, I could make a hundred different guesses at what each one was supposed to be: a perpetuum mobile, notes about that broken clock i dissected, designs for a rocket? I doubt one of them would've worked if build according to those designs, but MD isn't exactly real life and Manu isn't a little kid.
(ever since that thermodynamics course, I stopped trying to make perpetuum mobiiles.. although i still think it'd be cool to break the laws of physics like that.) -
1. We already have the silver and gold coin. Until the exchange rate for those stabilizes, I don't think adding more types of currency is a good thing. Furthermore I thought the MD economy was supposed to be a primitive one. The more types of currency involved, the more people that will try to become a bank. And if you think real life banks are criminal, wait until you see the proposed interest rates in MD: starting at 20%
2. What about people that want to be neutral?
What exactly does land ownership offer? If it can offer something to both roleplayers and grinders, it'd be a good money sink and the coins could be redistributed with quests thus accelerating the money flow. But how it creates countless job opportunities I don't see. -
Short notice is only a problem because i haven't got enough coins yet, though I might be able to get there. There should be at least one coin quest I haven't tried yet.
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So far there has been a lot of discussion about what the MDS is worth, whether or not the currency actually has value, is stable etc. I thought it'd be a good thing to have a survey about prices, so I made one.
[url="http://ihazquest.x10hosting.com/survey/survey.php"]http://ihazquest.x10hosting.com/survey/survey.php[/url]
Once enough people have completed it, I can make some nice graphs and give them to the MD newspaper or post them here. If anyone wants to check my math, I wont mind giving the raw data either, I don't think there is any valuable personal information to be paranoid about, but a graphical representation of what people think the MDS is worth, might shed a new light on the discussion and speed up the stabilization. (or it might tell us that we are nowhere near a consensus)
It only takes a couple of minutes do take the survey!
(now let's hope the x10 server will survive all that traffic) -
You could say the values were determined arbitrary. I would say they were a decent guess. At short notice it is near impossible to get at the 'real values', which are governed by supply and demand. If there is a large record of trades that have been made, one could calculate the average price and say that that value is not arbitrary, but there was no such record at the time.
When Phantasm said it is up to the one organizing the auction to determine the value, I think he meant that it is normal for a shopkeeper to determine prices and the customers can either agree to that price or not make any purchases. If nobody agrees, the shopkeeper will be forced to lower prices.
And if I remember correctly, paying in silver coins was highly encouraged, using creatures was only accepted because there were a lot of people that had too little coins.
Prices change according to supply and demand, currency changes too. I think Phantasm's dollar example holds. Just because one person would think a MDS is worth a drachorn, doesn't make that true. Just because one person thinks a dollar is worth a brand new car, doesn't make that true either. However, if everybody in MD would agree the MDS is worth a drachorn, it will become true. If everybody thinks a dollar is worth a brand new car, it will be true. The main difference is that the dollar has a long standing history and a larger population that think about what it is worth. And even then the currency is ever changing it's value.
The only way to increase faith in the MDS is to document the prices and history of the MDS. Which is something the newspaper could do: a couple of pages dedicated to the economy, including last month's average prices and some nice graphical representation of the evolution. -
[quote name='Burns' post='31749' date='May 21 2009, 07:38 AM']creatures and items will keep the coins flowing, technically endlessly, practically until a few players who don't care for the market have all of them, as easy as that ^^[/quote]
If they don't care, then why would they bother gathering coins? You can get a couple of coins without it being your aim, but to acquire a large part of the coins in circulation, would require a lot of trading. Why would you do that, unless you were planning to spend the coins on something? To have the most coins?
[quote]you couldn't prevent that from happening even if you got a neverending flow of items, unless those items were slightly overpowered (anti-freeze to all your creatures, plus 1000 attack to all your creatures, something along those lines for combat, complete invisibility, hiding name, avi and mp and giving a new chat profile instead, teleportation... for RP) because the 'common' things like plus 20 atk or plus 3000 vit are definitely not worth a coin for a veteran...[/quote]
I don't think the coin value is stable. Even real world currency is not stable and if a new batch of items is released, the market might change dramatically. Who is to say a coin wouldn't drop to being worth 5 atk? Some even stated a coin isn't worth anything at all...
[quote]so, my idea of keeping a flow up would be the constant creation AND destruction of really valueable things, like those slightly overpowered i already mentioned, like an invisibility cloak which has 5-10 uses, a teleportation spell that can be casted 5-10 times, or a total anti-freeze that can be used 5-10 times before dissolving itself... such things, some that are worth the work of getting them ^^[/quote]
This is along the lines of what me and others proposed earlier: constant creation and destruction of items, with a subset of items that give a temporary bonus. But creatures are already constantly created and some of them are also in high demand . The economy might just survive on that alone, or at the least give a lot of time for new code to be made.
One danger to the economy might be people who have a little coin, but not enough to buy what they want. What will they do? Try to gather more coins, even if it might take a year to get enough? That is an ever growing amount of coins outside of the economy for a long time. -
[quote name='Kriskah Arcanu' post='31713' date='May 20 2009, 09:13 PM']Never intended to be in charge of MD Market, I trully hope I am not.[/quote]
Alas, people that consider leadership a burden are more prone to be trustworthy than people that consider leadership a position of glory. Meaning you've just doomed yourself to get even more people voting for you. And with that I hope I added something positive to this tread. -
[quote name='dst' post='31709' date='May 20 2009, 08:46 PM']After reading all you said Kafuuka all I want to do is throw my laptop on the window. THEN I will be sure I am safe
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advertising:
install linux; even if you aren't an expert, it still is a hundred times less likely someone breaks into it. And there aren't as many ready made scripts to crack into it.
Sadly there aren't that much games available on linux, but MD works! -
That is incredibly low tech, but a simple trojan would do too. Most passwords are still stored in plain text on computers. All you need to know is where to look and how to get access to your target's computer. Last time i used windows, I had to clean spyware at least once a month to get rid off all the crap. Some programs even had the nerve to include spyware in them and politely tell you about it in the eula; that giant piece of text nobody reads.
Basicly, unless Jazira used strong passwords, updated her anti virus and firewall regularly, configured them all perfectly and read all eula's, didn't open attachments, never browsed an unsafe website, used pop up and add blockers and who knows what else... there was no need for physical acces to her pc.
Actually, I doubt it would take long for me to break into my own computer, maybe a couple of days to bruteforce the user password, which would be silly since i know my own password though. -
You don't have to be a genius to be a script kiddie and even if it was necessary, the MD community has enough smart people in it. Yes, targeting is a plausible scenario, but not the only one... there's even the remote possibility some data wasn't removed when logging out out of a public computer, and someone browsed through all the mail and then got interested in MD. The odds may be one in six billion, but hey, there is enough people on the planet to accommodate them. What is the use of guessing at this anyway?
Priority should go to determining if it was the email that got compromised or her computer. Finding out when this happened and knowing what else has been compromised.
btw,' hacker' is technically not the right word, it is 'cracker', or the pejorative 'script kiddie'. -
There are ways to change your ip, so tracking the ip of the cracker isn't a valid option. Even if lot's of crackers are actually script kiddies, they'll still know about those.
What email address was the new password sent to? If it is connected to her Yim, it is no surprise it became compromised that soon. If it is an other one, she should check her firewall and scan for trojans.
How strong was her Yim password, did she keep the registration mails? Did she use separate passwords for mail and MD? Did she keep other emails with passwords in them? It could be a lot more than her Yim and MD account that have been compromised. Especially if she didn't store her md password in an email and the passwords were strong (ie not something like '1234' or 'cookies'), because that would mean someone had to pry it from her computer. -
[quote name='Thanatopic' post='31397' date='May 18 2009, 01:41 PM']The Challenger strikes first, the Challenged however chooses where the combat will take place.[/quote]
You haven't mentioned this in your example. If the challenged chooses a desert, would that weaken water, or am I completely lost here?
I'd like to try the game, but I think i could do with a longer example. -
Imo everybody that isn't completely apathetic, has something (s)he hates.
My 'problem' with the hate list is that there's so much other stuff to write about and I like to keep things neatly organized, not mixing quests and 'things I hate' in the same scroll. So either the name should be changed to 'multipurpose scroll' or we should get more paper to work with. Like giving people that have quests but aren't RPC a brown Quest page? I don't need it to be gold, I just want more papers. -
I thought replies to ideas were supposed to go in a separate topic and i didn't see the one for this idea:
[quote name='pamplemousse' post='31525' date='May 19 2009, 08:15 PM']I am a generally nosy person and like to know what people are up to. I think it would be fun to have status updates (like on facebook) that would tell people what a character is doing at the moment.
.Pamplemousse. is _helping an adept_ or something.
I have no idea how to implement this technology-wise, perhaps on the toolbar, or another menu where the RPC, Webcam, etc is?[/quote]
I think it would be best put into the friend list. That way you would only get updates on a small amount of people, and wouldn't have to scroll through the entire list of players. And there is no need for a new menu, there are already a lot of those and i like the Keep It Simple Stupid approach for menu trees. -
The Trial - Franz Kafka
Not everything I read is that depressing though. I really like the discworld novels by Terry Pratchett and the hitchhiker's guide series by DNA, which like any good trilogy consists of five parts. -
I'd prescribe a cup of lmaonade every fifteen minutes.
Possible side effects include: pml (due to high fluid intake) and a sudden lack of spare pants. -
4 billion... I would've thought there'd be a max Int limit, but 4 billion isn't a power of two
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99% of the time live chat is perfect, however whenever there is a big event and dozens of people all post at the same time, the chat is suddenly too small. Messages like 'stay on topic' are then repeated every minute because they fall off the screen that fast and people seem to need the reminder.
I therefore propose that the chat frame can be resized for such events. It can be made twice as high without interfering (at least on my screen resolution/browser combo) and if the friends/info frame is disabled (which would remove the attack button, but that kinda makes sense for a peaceful gathering imo) it can be about twice the width. That increases the text capacity a fair bit.
A way to change the organisers' text color to green during the event. I think that color isn't taken yet and there's shades of green that don't hurt the eyes.
Alternatively, large meetings could be held on an irc channel, but that would break the immersion and not everybody knows how to use irc. (and we'd need a nick protection bot)
[/quote]
Paper Shaper Contest
in Quest Archive
Posted · Edited by Kafuuka
Presenting the first Paper Shaper contest.
This contest is aimed at new players and its purpose is to encourage both writing personal papers and roleplay. It is based on the idea in [topic="4199"]this topic[/topic]. If you have any remarks, please post them there, as this thread is only intended for sign-up purposes.
[u][size=3]Prizes:[/size][/u]
- First place 5 MD silver coins and an aged elemental.
- Second place 5 MD silver coins.
- Third place 2 MD silver coins.
Additional rewards may be given, depending on circumstances.
[u][size=3]How to sign up?[/size][/u]
Either post in this forum topic, or send a private message to [b]one[/b] of the jury members.**
[u][size=3]Contest Rules:[/size][/u]
- The deadline for applications is June 14 at 23h Server time.
- All participants have to have an active day count within the [10, 100] range at June 14.
- Only main accounts are allowed.
- A character can only enter this contest once, regardless of active day count.
- All characters that wish to partake in this contest, are required to have their public profile visible.*** Failure to do so by June 14, will disqualify the character from both this contest and future editions.
- Papers will be reviewed by the jury members** starting from june 14, 23h server time. The top 5 will be publicized on the forum, the other participants will be sent their individual scores by private mail.
- The scoring method is outlined below.*
- Only the comments on self and the hate list will be reviewed. Not the alliance papers, the military ways and believes or any others. This is to make the contest as fair as possible: everybody gets the same amount of paper.
- The words of the jury members are final.
- Participants are encouraged to have their papers proofread by other players or ask advise both on story writing, the MD realm, html and javascript... However, during the contest jury members will not help anyone with their papers.
- Should a participant be the adept of one of the jury members, said jury member will be replaced by the average of the other 3 jury members' scores.
- Any attempts at bribery will result in disqualification and expulsion from future contests.
[u]*Scoring method:[/u]
1. Each of the following Criteria will be given a rating from 1 to 5, by each of the jury members, for a total of 80 points maximum:
1.1 Literary skills, style, presentation
[indent]How well is your character presented? Grammar, punctuation, use of paragraphs and maybe some eye candy make papers fun to look at. Clever word use, rhyme schemes and your own literary style make them worth reading.[/indent]
1.2 Originality
[indent]Memorable characters are the ones that stand out, that are more unique than others. Be it an unsuspected twist on an old tale, a complicated scheme or something we've never heard before.[/indent]
1.3 Character balance and integration with MD
[indent]We can't all be number one, in fact most people are average. (If you don't believe this, google Normal distribution.) You might be better at some things, but you'll be worse at others. MD does not have stat buy like d&d has and even if you were to "translate" all characters into that system, not all of them would have started with 32 points. Some people like to have powerful characters, others have fun with 'gimped' characters, but no one likes to play with a godmodder. You should also keep in mind that Magic Duel is not a game of elves and dwarves nuking each other with fireball spells. The game mechanics only let a small amount of people cast spells. Your character might work to one day mastering one or two very powerful spells, but no one starts with them.
[/indent]
1.4 Roleplay, character adaptability and purpose
[indent]Staying in character is very important for a roleplay game! And so is having a character that can grow and adapt. You don't want to get bored of your character once he/she/it has done everything you've planned to do. New challenges should keep you occupied and they should come natural. Debts you've made while working towards your primary goal, new information that spiked your character's curiosity. How will your character deal with these, or with boredom? Your character's ideals and purpose are a key factor in determining it's future and interaction with others.[/indent]
2. Aside from this, each jury member can give an additional 2 bonus points or subtract two malus points, at his or her own discretion.
[u]**Jury members:[/u]
Awiiya, Intrigue, Kafuuka and Willem Redbeard
[u][size=3]List of participants[/size][/u]
[url="http://magicduel.com/players/blackwood%20forest"]Blackwood Forest[/url]
[url="http://magicduel.com/players/Septumus"]Septumus[/url]
[url="http://magicduel.com/players/Feanor%20Xalazian"]Feanor Xalazian[/url]
[url="http://magicduel.com/players/Phantom%20Orchid"]Priestess Phantom Orchid[/url]
[url="http://magicduel.com/players/Brightshield"]BrightShield[/url]
[url="http://magicduel.com/players/Kyphis"]Kyphis The Bard[/url]
[url="http://magicduel.com/players/King%20Daimon"]King Daimon[/url]
[url="http://magicduel.com/players/Death%20Ray"]Death Ray[/url]
[url="http://magicduel.com/players/Sharpwind"]Sharpwind[/url]
[url="http://magicduel.com/players/Talos%20Salvitore"]Talos salvitore[/url]
[url="http://magicduel.com/players/Ladytwin"]Ladytwin[/url]
[url="http://magicduel.com/players/Ennea"]Ennea[/url]
[url="http://magicduel.com/players/jaezon"]Jaezon[/url]
[url="http://magicduel.com/players/nemls"]Nemls[/url]
[url="http://magicduel.com/players/Tarie"]Tarie[/url]
[url="http://magicduel.com/players/Eman%20Emaul"]Eman Emaul[/url]
[url="http://magicduel.com/players/phantasm"]phantasm[/url]
[url="http://magicduel.com/players/Mhilael"]Mhilael[/url]
(i'll try to update this as often as possible)
*** To make the public profile visible again, open your personal page in HTML mode, remove everything, including breaks and white spaces, and save it in hmtl mode. If you have no idea what we're talking about then you never edited it and thus it's still working perfect. [b]You can verify yours and other participant's profiles by looking at the links in the list of participants. Also we will [u]try[/u] to verify if anything has gone wrong and look for a solution. [/b] With different browsers and a mix of scripts you never know, but the emphasis of this contest is not knowledge of browsers at all.
[right]We wish you all the best of luck,
The Paper Shaper Jury[/right]